English Whisky 2007-2010 - Chapter 7

The English Whisky Company was founded by father and son team James and Andrew Nelstrop in 2006. The Nelstrops built the St. George’s Distillery, England’s first new whisky distillery for over a century, at Roudham in Norfolk, where they make both peated and unpeated spirit. After some early new make and work-in-progress small batch bottlings - known as Chapters - the company launched Chapter 5, St. George’s first English single malt whisky, in December 2009.

In 2016, by which time the Chapter system was becoming a little unwieldy, St. George’s switched to a standard core range, with two bottlings known simply as The English Original and The English Smokey. These are augmented by a series of single cask and small batch releases, including The Norfolk, an ongoing range featuring different styles of grain whiskies.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.